Saturday, November 04, 2006

Just overheard that in a big crowd today -- looked like old friends parting after a social get-together. Speaker was probably 30-40 years old, male, white, Upper Midwestern accent. I'm wondering if this is one of those idiomatic constructions that sounds eerily like German influence: the loose seems like German los, in verbs like losziehen 'to head out'. You definitely get what for in the was für sense: 'What for a beer do you want?' is reported in Madison (originally, I gather, from Mike Olson, who's working on this topic with Angela Bagwell).

Shortly before that (at about 10:30 in the morning), I'd heard somebody say this walking in another big crowd: 'Man, you know what I wish I had right now?' I then couldn't hear what followed but they walked back right by me and the same guy was saying 'Yeah, a Snickers and a can of beer. Just can't get much better than that.'